The first day of the
Gulf Print Storm was packed during the day at several demos in the print shop of Lamar University's Department of Art. Thank you to all of the Lamar people who helped make the demos run smoothly.
Angela Malchionno
Angela Malchionno presented the first demonstration on monoprinting, sharing her approach to this direct printmaking process.
Contact paper shapes were cut out and applied to a beveled sheet of plexiglass. Additional plate possibilities include cut vinyl graphics (such as those created using the
Cricut personal cutting machine) and textured contact paper shapes applied to
Sintra, a dimensionally stable expanded PVC. Sintra is also great for collagraph processes as you can carve into it like a linocut or add onto it with gesso for texture or to adhere other materials.
The plate was inked and printed intaglio style, with care taken in modifying the edge quality of the plate tone around the image area.
Trace monotype was shown next, with the matrix created by rolling litho ink onto a piece of newsprint, then lightly talcing the inky paper. Baby powder works here, as well. This was laid ink-side down over a piece of printmaking paper, and drawn through with various pens and burnishers using a photocopy image as a guide.
A ghost image of the original plate was printed over the trace monoprint.
SFA Printmakers: Michelle Rozic, Joseph, Maria and Lauren We presented more approaches to monoprinting next with our
Tale of the Torbbit and the Haretle.
Winsor and Newton water mixable oil paint was used for the monoprinting layers, and
Caligo safe wash relief ink to ink the linoleum blocks. One benefit of using water soluble paints/inks is that you can clean up with soap and water. The oil paint can be thinned using water for washes.
The first print was comprised of three layers. The first layer was an additive and subtractive monoprint on plexiglass. A trace monoprint layer was printed over, with the relief blocks printed last. The plate from the first layer was reworked and printed on a second sheet of paper as a ghost print, with the relief blocks printed on top.
A kraft paper template ensured accurate registration, with sharpie outlines of basic image elements, including stencil locations, and xerox copies of the linoleum blocks to register both the monoprinted interior animal colors and the exterior edges of the linoleum blocks during the linoleum printing stage. T-bar registration marks were drawn with ball-point pen.
Basic colors were relief rolled onto the plexiglass, then pounced with a dauber to even out and modify the color. Marks were added in using brushes, and subtracted using various mark-making tools. The interior color of the animals were painted on
Yupo paper stencils, with additional painted stencils of cut lace, tarlatan and interfacing fabric, for the foliage, clouds and houses.
Ryan O'MalleyRyan demonstrated how to use silk screen as an alternative to other photo intaglio processes.
A copper plate was first beveled, with a 65% rosin aquatint applied. A spray paint aquatint can be applied as an alternative to rosin.
A xerox copy of a half-tone, positive image was baby oiled to use as a transparency in order to expose a photo silk screen. The intaglio plate was first secured to the table with tape behind the plate, and pieces of mat board above and below, which also caught extra screened asphaltum.
Asphaltum was flooded onto the screen image, and then squeegeed onto the intaglio plate through the open parts of the mesh, or the "whites" of the final intaglio image. The asphaltum should be thick enough to stay put once transferred to the intaglio plate, though thin enough and without dried particles to easily push through the screen. The screen was fairly fine, probably a 305 screen mesh.
VOC (volatile organic compound) solvents are needed to clean the asphaltum from the screen.
After the asphaltum dried, the plate was etched in a medium ferric chloride bath for 35 minutes to achieve a rich, velvety black. A value test strip should be done first to determine the length of time needed in the acid for the desired value.
One of the benefits of using this method to block out areas of a rosin aquatint is that multiple layers of stop out can be screened through different stencils to step-etch values. This would allow for not only the illusion of gradients from the half-tone patterning, but actual value shifts from different etch times.
